Faces of Fenger

2 seniors take different paths after brawl that killed Derrion Albert

June 13, 2010|By Kristen Mack and Annie Sweeney, Tribune reporters

In September they were two teens heading into senior year. Vashion "B.J." Bullock and Montrell Truitt lived in the same neighborhood on the Far South Side, were classmates at Fenger High School and were being raised by the firm hands of protective mothers.

Two weeks into the school year their paths diverged.

Both were swept into a deadly brawl among Fenger students that was caught on video and broadcast to the world. Sixteen-year-old Derrion Albert lost his life and five teens were locked up in his murder.

Bullock and Truitt walked away to find their school year suddenly and dramatically redefined. Bullock was deemed an aggressor in the fight. Truitt was classified as a victim.

But in the months that followed, as they faced the fallout, neither teen would allow those labels to dictate the outcome of his final year of high school.

'A second chance'

It was 8:06 a.m., morning drills had already started and B.J. Bullock was running late. He had to catch the bus to Muhammad University of Islam on Tuesdays because his mother underwent dialysis before sunrise. While his book bag was being searched, he straightened his suit and tie, anxious to fall into formation.

"Eyes to the left. Left. Left. Left," Dwayne Muhammad, the dean of boys, called out to his young pledges, who turned in unison. "Original salute. Brigade salute. As you were. Face to right. About face. Head up. Elbow up."

Bullock, 18, managed to keep up with the others, some of whom had practiced the military-style drills since kindergarten. But perspiration formed on his forehead and he looked at his feet to make sure they matched the syncopated rhythm.

MUI was 8 miles but a world away from Fenger, where Bullock began a senior year that ended abruptly on Sept. 24.

Bullock said he rushed into the fight, in Roseland near the school, after being pummeled in the face with a brick.

When a digital recording of the melee emerged, it showed Bullock shirtless in the middle of a frenetic mob. It showed him picking up a wooden plank and standing over Albert, who was already on the ground losing consciousness after being punched and whacked. But instead of striking Albert with the plank, he walked away.

His brother, Eugene Riley, was charged with murder for allegedly striking Albert with a two-by-four.

Bullock faced repercussions, too. He was expelled from Chicago Public Schools for two years. Although he was assigned to an alternative school, the option felt like a dead end and he chose not to enroll.

Weeks later, he went to a community forum where kids discussed getting to and from school safely. That was the least of Bullock's problems. He had no school to go to.

He raised his hand.

"What about me?" he asked.

"The look on his face was desperation, a sort of hopelessness," said Tonja Styles, the founder of Political Swagger, a nonprofit that engages the younger hip-hop generation in social issues.

Styles was moved to help. She reached out to MUI, a private school founded by the Nation of Islam, and got Bullock an interview in late fall. His admission was delayed while he waited for transcripts from CPS and Fenger, he and Styles said.

For five months, he sat at home in the Altgeld Gardens public housing complex. His grandmother schooled him, but that consisted largely of reading Black's Law Dictionary and writing down definitions to words he didn't know.

In early March, he learned he had been accepted to MUI. Styles offered to pick up the tab for several months of tuition.

Bullock's mother, Sherry Smith, tried to explain to him how lucky he was, even though attending the school meant cutting his dreadlocks and dressing in a suit and tie.

"I wanted him to understand, 'This is a new start for you,'" she said. "Everybody doesn't get that. You have a second chance to get it right.'"

MUI was built around the idea that everyone is redeemable. .

"Discipline starts with expectation," said MUI Principal Larry Muhammad. "You'd be surprised how fast young people can adjust in the right environment."

Back at his house, after a spring school day, Bullock was returning from taking out the trash when the phone rang.

"Is that my brother?" Bullock said — the most animated he'd been all day.

Bullock had visited Riley in jail only once because when he went to visit, he felt he had faced extra scrutiny for showing a Fenger school badge, his only picture ID.

"That's what's in the next letter that's coming to you," he said during their five-minute conversation.

Then Bullock said: "Love you too. I got you. Be safe man."

Bullock, who tries to mostly look forward, is on track to graduate next month and he hopes to apply to Northwestern University and major in engineering. He says now he's "got his head screwed on to the correct path."

Bullock said the day he got accepted to MUI, not the fight, was the defining moment of his year.